Devotions for improved connection to God

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Turn On The Light

Psalms 53:5 There they are, in great terror, where there is no terror!

The fifty-third Psalm begins with a familiar verse – The fool says in his heart “There is no God.”

Man’s heart does not have the natural capacity to believe in God – it has been corrupted by sin and separated eternally from relationship with God. In his natural state, man can know that God exists, and can see the majesty of His being in the splendor of His creation, but he has no ability to restore the broken relationship with God that sin caused.

Yet this reality does not make a person a fool. He is a fool when the grace of God enlightens the darkness of his heart and reveals to him the love of God and he rejects it. The fool refuses faith. The fool chooses the flesh and its gratification while rejecting faith and its glorification.

The fool goes so far as to deny the very existence of God in an attempt to justify his choices. Man believes that the exclusion of God from all aspects of human existence validates all human endeavor. The fool believes this is progress and the natural evolution of mankind. The fool believes this eliminates fear. The reality is that fear increases without God.

King David says that the fool begins to fear even when there is nothing to fear, because without God there is no security or hope. (Psalm 53:5) Man’s wisdom is soon proved foolish. Man’s plans soon fail. Hope is overwhelmed by worry.

Oswald Chambers said it this way – The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else.

Many of our fears are the product of ignorance, and the choice to be ignorant of God is the worst ignorance of all. Jesus said it this way, This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

Choosing darkness over light results in fear. Jesus also said, If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

It’s one thing to be in the dark and not know that there is light available. What is worse is to be in the dark, know where the light is, but refuse to turn it on. But what is absurdly foolish and unforgivable is to stay in the dark when light is available and then call the darkness light.

Faith turns on the light and eliminates fear. We master fear through faith—faith in the trustworthiness of God and the worthwhileness of life; faith in the meaning of our pain and our striving, and confidence that God will not cast us aside but will use each one of us as a piece of priceless mosaic in the design of his universe. Fear imprisons, faith liberates; fear paralyzes, faith empowers; fear disheartens, faith encourages; fear sickens, faith heals; fear makes useless, faith makes serviceable—and, most of all, fear puts hopelessness at the heart of life, while faith rejoices in its God. (Harry Emerson Fosdick)

If you are suffering from fear where others are saying there is nothing to fear, then look to your faith as the answer. Salvation is coming! God will restore the fortunes of His people. He is faithful and good. He cannot and will not fail.

You have nothing to fear if your life is in His hands. Have faith. Turn on the light.